Beauty and Attention: A Novel

  “Oh, good news. I’m traveling solo,” said Henrietta crisply. “My great-aunt passed away.”

  Lazarus was silent a moment, exhaling smoke. He picked a bit of tobacco from his lips. “That is good news,” he said in a dry voice.

  “Sorry to sound heartless. You don’t know me. And you didn’t know her. She was not a nice person. And she was very old. Almost ninety-four, though she lied about her age. She died crossing the street against traffic.”

  “Served her right then,” Lazarus said.

  “I don’t suppose Libby is there, is she? She would be wide awake at this hour. At least she would be awake at home. In America, I mean.”

  “Libby tells me you’re very patriotic,” said Lazarus, looking around for an ashtray. When he couldn’t find one, he perched his cigarette on a small statue of a fox above the bed, placing it between the animal’s marble ears.

  “Yes, and proud of it!” Henrietta exclaimed. She raised her voice. She didn’t trust the quality of non-American phone equipment. She was standing inside a bright-red phone booth, and a line had formed outside her booth. She turned her back firmly to the crowd and straightened her hat.

  “I could hunt for my cousin if you need her,” said Lazarus. “Or you could be a good girl and just tell me where to send the car.”

  “Please don’t call me a good girl,” said Henrietta. “You are Libby’s relation and I think we should try to get along. Don’t you?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “All right then, why don’t you send the car to Great Victoria Street. Thanks. I’ll be waiting.”

  Lazarus put up the big black umbrella and made sure that Libby was securely under it before he steered her toward the crowded Great Victoria train station. It had been fine out in the country, but it was raining on Great Victoria Street, a sleety autumn rain that held a thinly veiled threat of hail. It was raining in Belfast; of course, it always rained in Belfast.

  “I’m going to hate your friend,” Lazarus had said gloomily as they entered the station through one of its many arched gray doorways. The place smelled of diesel, and fried potatoes, and the sweeter scent of nearly decaying damp wool. Lazarus wore a thin cardigan sweater with elbow patches. “I may as well dress the part of the Irishman,” he had told Libby. “I only wish I had one of those wool caps the old men wear.”

  “You will love her, if only for my sake,” said Libby now, distracted, for she had already begun trying to pick out the tall, lean figure of her friend in the busy station.

  “I cannot love even for your sake,” said Lazarus, buckling the big black umbrella closed and shaking off the excess rain. “Or stop loving, for that matter.” The station had high, webbed, vaulted glass-and-steel ceilings that made sounds bounce from one corner to the other. It looked like the underside of a bridge. “I suppose we’re looking for some battle-ax dressed head to toe in brown Macintosh? You needn’t tell me she’s homely, for I’ve already heard her speak.”

  “Henry is beautiful,” answered Libby, between annoyance and amusement. “And she dresses far better than I do.”

  “Women always stick up for each other,” Lazarus said.

  But Libby had spotted Henry. “See,” she said and pointed.

  As if she had picked out the sound of her friend’s voice from all other noises—train whistles, heels clacking, engines emitting puffs of steam—Henry swiveled around and spotted Libby. She was indeed dressed elegantly, in a rose-red dress with a ruffle at the neck. She was clutching a small white bouquet of violets, but when she saw Libby moving toward her, she threw her arms open with a dazzling smile.

  Lazarus whistled between his teeth.

  Henry froze. Her eyes flashed—he could see that even at this distance, and he watched her taking his measure—his bony figure, his trembling fingers, the hair prematurely white. A look of pity rolled across her face like a cloud, then hid itself. She bared her teeth in a grin and dropped a small, mocking curtsy.

  Back in Gardencourt, Henrietta and Libby sat ensconced in the drawing room, with old Mr. Sachs and Lazarus dancing attendance, and Margaret pouring the tea. A crackling fire sent a few sparks up into the flue. The room smelled of wood smoke and cake.

  “I can’t believe this is September,” said their guest. “Rochester was stifling, still.” Henrietta balanced her tea and cake plate on her long, silk-stockinged legs. She looked, Lazarus was thinking, like a racehorse stuck indoors. He envied Henry her energy and at the same time it exhausted him to the point where now and again he lay back his head and closed his eyes. It would be easy enough to fall in love with a girl like Henrietta—if he were in the market for love.

  “But this is very pleasant,” she added hastily.

  “I’m glad you like it,” said Lazarus, with his eyes closed.

  “How much did this place cost you?” Henry asked Mr. Sachs.

  “Henry!” cried Libby.

  “Are we not allowed to talk about money?” said Henry innocently.

  “You may talk about anything you please,” said Mr. Sachs.

  “Yes—would you like to know how much we weigh?” asked Lazarus.

  “I would like to know how much you pay your servants,” said Henrietta, as soon as Margaret had stepped out of the room.

  “Why not call them slaves, and assume we pay nothing at all,” suggested Lazarus.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Libby, rubbing her forehead with her knuckles.

  “All right, all right,” said Henry in a slightly grumpy voice. She drank her tea. “Is this what they call Irish tea?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Libby.

  “What makes it Irish, exactly?”

  The two Sachs men stared at her mutely.

  “It’s made of potatoes,” said Lazarus at last.

  “Never mind,” said Henry, drawing a small notebook and silver pen from her large, rectangular-shaped handbag. “I’ll look it up later. That’s the sort of detail our readers want to know.”

  “Your readers?” said Mr. Sachs faintly.

  “Miss Capone is a journalist, Daddy,” said Lazarus. “You remember. She’s going to earn a Pulitzer exposing us.”

  “But seriously,” said Henrietta, “can you introduce me to some of the local nobility? And of course I’d like to meet some of the common people too.”

  “You mean the peasants?” said Lazarus.

  Henrietta studied him over the rim of her teacup, her eyes very large and a surprisingly beautiful, dark shade of green. “How long has it been since you’ve visited your native land?” she asked.

  “I haven’t been back to America in ages,” said Lazarus. “I doubt they miss me.”

  “But you can’t know, can you, till you go. Perhaps if you touched your own soil, you would spring back to life and strength like Antaeus.”

  “I thought you were a journalist, Miss Capone, not a writer of fables.”

  “It is not a fable that we each represent our civilization,” she answered.

  “Heaven forbid that I should represent anything!” Lazarus exclaimed.

  Henry looked at him with her lips pursed. “Well, perhaps you are right,” she murmured, putting her pen and notebook down. She dug a fork into her cake, but hesitated before eating it. “Still I think we all have something to contribute to this world—if we can find our passion.”

  “I agree with you there,” Mr. Sachs said warmly. “I’ve been telling my son exactly that for ages.”

  Henry took her pen and scribbled a few lines into her notebook. She put the pen and paper back inside the dark reaches of her large bag, and balancing the cup and plate awkwardly, as before, picked up her fork. “And is this Irish cake?” she asked.

  “Yes, it’s also made of potatoes,” answered Lazarus.

  Libby exchanged an agonized glance with Mr. Sachs’s amused one. “Will they go on like this all week?” she asked him.

  “I hope so,” said the elderly gentleman.

  Upstairs, alone in her room with her friend, Henrietta unpinned her long hair and beg
an to brush it, slowly and steadily. “I have something important to tell you,” said Henry. “You haven’t asked me a thing yet about Cap Lockwood.”

  “Haven’t I?” asked Libby, her voice too high. She shook out a silk dress belonging to Henry and hung it at the front of the closet, fastening the top button in place.

  “God, I hate wearing stockings,” Henry announced, suddenly throwing down her brush and removing her nylons, rolling them down from the top and tossing them onto the bed. “Do you know there’s a woman named Fogarty writing about wife dresses? She tells women never to leave the house without a girdle.”

  “I’ve never worn one,” said Libby. “Are they as uncomfortable as they look?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Henry, “but my great-aunt lived and died in one. She was wearing it in her hospital bed the day she passed away. But don’t shift subjects on me, Libby. Don’t you care at all what happens to that man?” She picked up her hairbrush again and waved it in the air.

  “What man?” asked Libby. She stayed standing in the closet, breathing in the strong scent of cedar. It was a smell she associated with her childhood and visiting horse stalls with her father at the Saratoga race track. A smell of danger, mixed with gin, in those days.

  “Cap is coming here after you,” said Henry, brushing her hair again in short, definite strokes. “Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight,” she said, counting aloud. “I hoped you’d be pleased to know he still cares enough to come.”

  Libby turned. Her face was pale and stern. “What do you mean, coming after me? I’m not some runaway. Couldn’t you tell him not to come?”

  “When has anyone been able to tell Cap anything?” Henry laid down the brush. “He just wants to see you, assure himself you’re all right. I thought you were such good friends, Libby. What happened before you left?”

  “He doesn’t need any more friends apparently.” Libby could not keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  “Well, if he said so, that wasn’t kind. But people say unkind things when they are hurting . . . when they want something they can’t have. I don’t know why we insist that human beings are so elevated. I’ve never known a dog to hold a grudge—or a horse, or a cat.” She resumed brushing her hair, counting under her breath. After a moment she added in her journalist’s voice, “Do you really feel you could never love him? If so, I guess you’d better tell him and get it over with, so you can both move on. He’s considered a great catch, you know, and a business genius. I’m sure he’ll find someone to love eventually.”

  Libby kicked off her shoes. “I hope so,” she said. “I want him to be happy.” Henry swung around in her chair and regarded her friend, unblinkingly.

  “Do you really?” said Henry. “Be very sure, Libby, before you send him packing.”

  “I wonder if men get married just to get it over with,” said Libby. “If they reach a certain age and think to themselves, ‘I need a wife,’ the way they would say, ‘I need a suit.’ Or a house, or a car. Then they look for a likely candidate.”

  “I have no idea,” said Henry. “I’ve never been a likely candidate, so I can’t say . . . Libby!” she exclaimed, with a sudden dawning of understanding. Her face broke into a grin. “Has some European man already proposed to you?”

  “No,” said Libby. “I hope he doesn’t. I think I’m just a curiosity.”

  “Well, I should stick around in case he does. What fun! Couldn’t I listen in on the proposal? It would make such a wonderful human interest story!” She caught sight of the horror on Libby’s face, and laughed despite herself, shaking her head till her hair fell into her eyes. “Okay, no. But you’ll have to remember every word he says. I wonder if the Irish propose differently.”

  “He isn’t Irish, in the first place,” said Libby.

  “Well, what is he? Is he Romanian, or something exotic?” Henry leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees. “Is he Russian? I’ve been dying to go to Russia. This could be my chance. “

  “How quickly you forget poor Cap!” Libby exclaimed.

  “I see you haven’t forgotten him,” Henry shot back. She took a lipstick from the bureau in front of her and rimmed her mouth with rose pink, then blotted it with a tissue and fired the tissue into a nearby wastepaper basket, overhand. “I’ll take that as a good omen.”

  A week later, Lord Warburton came to call—but he wasn’t alone. Libby was relieved to hear it. He’d brought his solicitor, from London.

  “What is a solicitor?” demanded Henry, shaking both men’s hands vigorously, then stepping back to study them.

  “It’s a sort of a lawyer,” said the solicitor, whose name was Roger Pye.

  “And do you have a sort of law degree?” asked Henry. She’d whipped out her pencil and notebook.

  “Yes,” said Roger Pye mildly. He was a tall man, with stooped shoulders and a very long, aristocratic nose.

  “How many sisters and brothers do you have?” Henry demanded.

  “Two of each,” he answered promptly. While he was naming them, Lord Warburton strolled behind and took a quick glance at Henry’s notebook.

  “Be careful, Pye,” he said. “She’s writing all this down. She’s even got your ums and ahs in here. Libby, will you show me around the gardens, since your cousin is ill disposed today?”

  “He caught an awful cold,” she answered. “But there isn’t much new to see since your last visit.”

  “Then it won’t take long to see it,” he said, striding toward the door. Libby looked helplessly at her friend, shrugging, then followed.

  “Wait!” called Henry. “I have a dozen questions to ask you about being a lord!”

  This only made Warburton move faster. “Later!” he called back over his shoulder.

  Libby grabbed her jacket off a hook and hurried after him. Mr. Pye was laughing at something Henry had just said and clapping his hands in delight.

  “This is better than a play!” he was saying. “Do go on.”

  “Have you many friends like her?” asked Lord Warburton when they were safely outside.

  “There are not many people in the world as good as Henrietta Capone,” answered Libby. There had been a frost earlier; the dark-red lilies had turned black, and those that hadn’t fallen hung crumpled and soft-looking. “Not much to see,” she pointed out needlessly.

  “I didn’t come to see the lilies, I came to see you,” said Warburton. “To ask if you could take me seriously, if you would be my wife.” The words tumbled out as if he wanted to get rid of them as quickly as possible.

  “Your wife,” said Libby in despair.

  “That’s right,” he said, “but you needn’t answer right away. We’ve only known each other a few months. I imagine it comes as something of a shock, a question like that. It’s asking a lot of a person. I’m aware of that. I’m aware how little you know me. Only I just thought—you know—on the chance . . .”

  Libby plucked a lily from its stem. “I’m . . . very grateful,” she murmured. She stroked a few petals of the flower and watched it fall apart. “But I don’t think I would suit you. I truly don’t.”

  “No, don’t say that,” said Warburton. “Surely you want to take a little time to think things over. Perhaps I put the matter badly. I haven’t anyone to advise me in these things.”

  “Not even your solicitor?” teased Libby, with a sad smile.

  “Damn my solicitor!” he cried. “I couldn’t shake him off; he wanted to meet some real live Americans. As if there aren’t dozens of them wandering around London all hours of the night.”

  “I hope there aren’t,” Libby answered. “He seems like a kind man. . . . His eyes look sad even when his mouth smiles. Mr. Pye, is it?”

  “Why in God’s name are we talking about Pye?” Lord Warburton demanded.

  “Because I’ve nothing good to say about us,” said Libby. “About you and me—we’ve only just met. And your proposal makes me feel shy and uncomfortable, and you deserve better than I can give.”


  Lord Warburton sat down heavily on a stone bench. He was a large man, so when he sat heavily, it had the effect of a very large object giving in to the laws of gravity. And indeed, his expression was graver than Libby had ever seen it. But then he smiled, kindly. He patted the bench beside him, and when Libby hesitated, he patted it more firmly. “I won’t bite,” he said. “Sit down.”

  She sat. In her dark-gray wool jacket, her face looked pale and somber. She still held the flower in the palm of her hand, and now she touched the edges of its petals.

  “Is it the Irish climate?” he said, glancing down at her hand. “I know it’s cold and damp here. But we can live elsewhere, you know. We can go anywhere in the wide world that you like!”

  He put his arms out as he spoke, and Libby could not help but feel the ardor of it—it was like an embrace, the warmth of his words, as sweet and keen as the fragrance of the lily she was now crumpling in her hand as her fist opened and closed. Her mother and father had only known each other a few weeks when they eloped—but that was another time, another age. And that marriage had been a disaster. She remembered her mother in tears behind a closed door. She wished she could feel differently about Lord Warburton. But she drew away as instinctively as a bird that finds itself in a vast cage. The bars were there, no matter how much she might try to ignore them.

  “I don’t think I want to be married,” she said.

  “Well . . . many women start out that way,” he said, smiling slightly at his own joke.

  She tossed the lily down to the ground and stood. She began pacing back and forth. Whether she knew it or not, she was wringing her hands. “I’m sorry—I can’t. I mustn’t and I can’t!”

  “Is there some rule against it? Do you have to wait a certain period before you become engaged? I hadn’t thought of that. Your father was Jewish, wasn’t he? Is it a religious prohibition? I can wait, you know—as long as you say.”

  “No, it isn’t that!” Her eyes were wide. “I think I’m not going to marry at all. Ever. I don’t have the patience for it.”